Title: Custom Referral Spam Blocker Author: csmicfool Published: July 29, 2015 Last modified: February 9, 2017 --- Search plugins ![](https://ps.w.org/custom-referral-spam-blocker/assets/banner-772x250.png?rev= 1320275) This plugin **hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress**. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress. ![](https://ps.w.org/custom-referral-spam-blocker/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=1320274) # Custom Referral Spam Blocker By [csmicfool](https://profiles.wordpress.org/csmicfool/) [Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker.1.4.6.zip) * [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker/#description) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker/#reviews) * [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker/#installation) * [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker/#developers) [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/) ## Description Custom Referral Spam Blocker gives you the control to ensure that dishonest referral sources are blocked from Google Analytics. We provide a strong default set of spam referral sources and block them for you. Referrers can quickly be added in moments using the WordPress Dashboard. _At this time, we are unable to block referral spam when used in conjunction with most CDN configurations._ ## Screenshots [⌊This is the options screen.⌉⌊This is the options screen.⌉[ This is the options screen. ## Installation 1. Upload `plugin-name.php` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory 2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress 3. Use the Custom Referral Spam Blocker Settings screen to manage referral sources. ## FAQ If I customize my list and new default sources are added, will my list be updated? Future versions are planned with improved support for appending to default versus replacing it with your own list. What is the correct way to add new domains to the block list? This plugin blocks requests for all pages from a given domain or subdomain. Each domain should be added on a new line. For example, if you add “imaspammerandimok. com” to the list, requests with referrers such as “http://imaspammerandimok.com/ spamallnight/spamallday.html” will also be blocked. Do not include the protocol ( https://, http://) or path (/folder/page.html) when adding new domains. Subdomains, however, must currently be entered individually. What happens to the evil spammers? Their requests are intentionally blocked from continuing to load any WordPress code and get directed away from your site. If they have a puppy, it cries. ## Reviews ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5ac0b0cff17a8a0a9cd62f802c391feb58352f07b683c43487e01a39dbec192b? s=60&d=retro&r=g) ### 󠀁[The plugin blocks me totally :@ :@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/the-website-was-detected-as-spam/)󠁿 [baxter94](https://profiles.wordpress.org/baxter94/) January 22, 2018 1 reply This plugin turn my website to 502, don’t use it :X. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/687c54a643ae96ba193e8be9e7c53fc67364d12fec96526e8836e44ac3e50554? s=60&d=retro&r=g) ### 󠀁[Not working for all sites…](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/not-working-for-all-sites/)󠁿 [marti garaughty](https://profiles.wordpress.org/garaughty/) September 3, 2016 1 reply Great concept but unfortunately it’s not blocking all spam referral sites. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/2e46358454c62b7f062b7b2778533290269bab7a06c1bf0abd476a149f18885f? s=60&d=retro&r=g) ### 󠀁[Doesn't Work For Me](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/doesnt-work-for-me-101/)󠁿 [Coalay](https://profiles.wordpress.org/chrisparksaz/) September 3, 2016 2 replies Wished it worked, but it doesn’t. All of the referrer spam I get has long text strings after the domain name — which seems to circumvent the blocker. So far, it has NOT blocked: timebie.com mlizcochico.com gamezebo.com keywords-monitoring-your-success. com notify.bluecoat.com adishofdailylife.com wotbox.biz ana-white.com free-video- tool.com techvibes.com myhomeideas.com laurenconrad.com sociableblog.com grammarist. com netsidebar.com gingerhotels.com fhm.com bluecoat.com dobbersports.com mp3boo. cc Update: In response to the author’s comment(s) below, I have changed my rating to a “5” — BUT the plugin still does not work for me and I’m still getting referrer spam from the domains listed above. This is not “ghost spam”. We’re using Rackspace + Cloudflare + WPRocket. I realize that some plugins don’t anticipate users with premium assets and are more geared toward budget hosts and basic configurations, but all of the plugins that I use that are dependent on Cloudflare or caching have options in the plugin settings so that they all work together — regardless of whether or not the user has a cache or a CDN. So, I’ll check back again in a couple of months and try the plugin again. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/289f40b523c2dd4643fc010999db20321d96f503190ee8f2991dc443ab3e2088? s=60&d=retro&r=g) ### 󠀁[Just what I needed](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/just-what-i-needed-473/)󠁿 [milprod](https://profiles.wordpress.org/milprod/) September 3, 2016 Easy and effective. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/52f0e27e13df4be183bfb7a54c4b13f6ed046cd5539d44d607558860f8190511? s=60&d=retro&r=g) ### 󠀁[Best Referral Spam Blocker Plugin!](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/best-referral-spam-blocker-plugin/)󠁿 [Michaelmcguinness](https://profiles.wordpress.org/michaelmcguinness/) September 3, 2016 3 replies This plugin redirected the spam bots away, never to come back. But there is one small in the fact that it also redirects t.co which is not spam but a twitter referral. If this problem was fixed it would perfect. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/fd85ae1d1f88810466a6ae2b874b4eb51f6e91ff73922da2e1b7ef8d3ceb190c? s=60&d=retro&r=g) ### 󠀁[No more referral spam](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/no-more-referral-spam-1/)󠁿 [csmicfool](https://profiles.wordpress.org/csmicfool/) September 3, 2016 Spammers are immediately redirected away and do not foul analytics. List updates are pushed out very frequently. [ Read all 10 reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/reviews/) ## Contributors & Developers “Custom Referral Spam Blocker” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin. Contributors * [ csmicfool ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/csmicfool/) “Custom Referral Spam Blocker” has been translated into 1 locale. Thank you to [the translators](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker/contributors) for their contributions. [Translate “Custom Referral Spam Blocker” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker) ### Interested in development? [Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/custom-referral-spam-blocker/), check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/custom-referral-spam-blocker/), or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/custom-referral-spam-blocker/) by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/custom-referral-spam-blocker/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss). ## Changelog #### 0.1 * Initial release. #### 0.2 * Bug fixes. #### 0.3 * Added optional data sharing features. #### 0.4 * Updated block list #### 0.5 * Updated block list #### 0.6 * Updated block list #### 0.7 * Updated block list #### 0.7.1 * Updated block list #### 1.0 * Non-destructive referer list upgrade. Adds a more seamless upgrade path when database releases are available. Safely merges custom user-defined spammers with those in the maintained list. #### 1.0.3 * Bug fixes for infinite redirects related to short or blank domains appearing in custom block lists. As a result, only exact matches will be blocked and variants will need to be added to lists manually. #### 1.0.4 * New remote url for custom list submissions. As we grow, we need to improve our spammer identification and list update tools. #### 1.0.6 * Added features to support plugin translation under wordpress standards. #### 1.0.7 * Blocklist update. #### 1.0.8 * Bugfix to ensure lowercase matches for blocks. #### 1.0.9 * Blocklist update. #### 1.0.91 * Bugfix for utf-8 character comparison. #### 1.1 * New support to help block domains from non-ANSI character sets such as cyrillic or chinese. * List update. #### 1.1.1 * 2000 download edition! * List update #### 1.1.2 * Security fix for Multisite. * Enables settings for Network Admins only. #### 1.1.3 * Improved multisite support. #### 1.1.35 * List update * Added preliminary whitelist for t.co #### 1.1.36 * List update #### 1.1.37 * List update #### 1.1.4 * List update * Bug fix for data sharing issue #### 1.2 * List update * Bug fix for data sharing issue #### 1.2.1 * List update #### 1.2.3 * Fixes errors saving settings changes in WPMU * Unified site_options list for WPMU #### 1.2.4 * List Update #### 1.2.5 * List Update #### 1.2.6 * List Update * 4.5.1 Compatible #### 1.2.7 * List Update * 4.5.2 Compatible #### 1.2.9 * List Update #### 1.3.0 * List Update * 4.5.3 Support #### 1.4.0 * List Update * Fixes Multisite Support #### 1.4.1 * List Update * 4.6 Support #### 1.4.2 * List Update #### 1.4.3 * List Update * cURL timeout fix #### 1.4.4 * List Update #### 1.4.5 * List Update ## Meta * Version **1.4.6** * Last updated **9 years ago** * Active installations **300+** * WordPress version ** 3.0.1 or higher ** * Tested up to **4.7.33** * Languages * [English (Canada)](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker/) and [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker/). * [Translate into your language](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker) * Tags * [referral spam](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/referral-spam/)[referrals](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/referrals/) [seo](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/seo/)[spam](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/spam/) * [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-referral-spam-blocker/advanced/) ## Ratings 4 out of 5 stars. * [ 7 5-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/reviews/?filter=5) * [ 0 4-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/reviews/?filter=4) * [ 1 3-star review ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/reviews/?filter=3) * [ 0 2-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/reviews/?filter=2) * [ 2 1-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/reviews/?filter=1) [Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/reviews/#new-post) [See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/reviews/) ## Contributors * [ csmicfool ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/csmicfool/) ## Support Got something to say? Need help? [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/custom-referral-spam-blocker/) ## Donate Would you like to support the advancement of this plugin? [ Donate to this plugin ](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=C2A8GHH997USA)